Buffering issues

[Michael Pinchen]

Hi all,

Apologies if I come across as a noob, but technically I am when it comes to these android boxes!

I bought the m5 a few months ago while on standard adsl broadband, mainly just to watch live football and also impractical jokers via Genesis. Buffering was quite frequent and put this down to the broadband, 7 meg download and 0.8 upload wasn't going to set the world on fire.

Upgraded to Virgin fibre, and the first few weeks after this it was a lot quicker. However now it seems to take a while to buffer the whole 20 minute video for impractical jokers, even ones that I'd watched not long after switching to virgin. I work in tech support, so I've tried a few things, tested watching a standard 4 min video on YouTube, this buffered within 10-15 seconds. Trying to use the ota updater or system update brings up "error fetching update info: invalid rom ID (droidboxm5)!

So I uninstalled Kodi, downloaded 15.2 direct from droid box blog website and put into a usb and installed. Whilst on the Internet, I made other changes after using good old Google. I disabled the router's firewall, and set up wireless Mac filtering. I logged into the Virgin account and turned off the virus function, and child safe mode. I've also downloaded an advancedsettings.xml file from the web and applied this to user data folder, all to no avail.

A few side notes, this is connected wired right next to the router with a standard length Ethernet cable, running speed test shows download of 22 and upload of 3. I have a desktop wired into the router, with a much longer Ethernet cable in another room, and the speedtest shows as over 50 meg download with 3 meg upload, which is baffling, I'd expect the opposite. I've noticed that the memory usage is very high, constantly around 65%, and a few times Kodi has crashed loading a video stating cache was too full. I have an external hard drive that isn't being used, if I could plug that in and have that running alongside the android box, and let this have all apps installed, and let the cache build on there until I clear it, would that work, and is that even possible? I've posted below the system details incase that helps, incase I'm not running latest updates etc, and how to install these, basically any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Kodi 15.2 git:2015-10-31-02e7013-dirty (compiled oct 31 2015)
Kernel version 3.10.33
Android version 4.4.2
Model version m201
Build number k5.m5.20150306.v2.2.0

 

[Nigelar]

Have a read of this. It may provide a solution but if not, you will have a good understanding of the causes of buffering.

http://www.tvaddons.ag/buffering-tips/

 

[27mark]

I'm on 70mb fibre and I get buffering bad from time to time, the other night I had a job to watch anything and the next night everything was flying along

 

[8bitDev]

Hi all,

Apologies if I come across as a noob, but technically I am when it comes to these android boxes!

I bought the m5 a few months ago while on standard adsl broadband, mainly just to watch live football and also impractical jokers via Genesis. Buffering was quite frequent and put this down to the broadband, 7 meg download and 0.8 upload wasn't going to set the world on fire.

Upgraded to Virgin fibre, and the first few weeks after this it was a lot quicker. However now it seems to take a while to buffer the whole 20 minute video for impractical jokers, even ones that I'd watched not long after switching to virgin. I work in tech support, so I've tried a few things, tested watching a standard 4 min video on YouTube, this buffered within 10-15 seconds. Trying to use the ota updater or system update brings up "error fetching update info: invalid rom ID (droidboxm5)!

So I uninstalled Kodi, downloaded 15.2 direct from droid box blog website and put into a usb and installed. Whilst on the Internet, I made other changes after using good old Google. I disabled the router's firewall, and set up wireless Mac filtering. I logged into the Virgin account and turned off the virus function, and child safe mode. I've also downloaded an advancedsettings.xml file from the web and applied this to user data folder, all to no avail.

A few side notes, this is connected wired right next to the router with a standard length Ethernet cable, running speed test shows download of 22 and upload of 3. I have a desktop wired into the router, with a much longer Ethernet cable in another room, and the speedtest shows as over 50 meg download with 3 meg upload, which is baffling, I'd expect the opposite. I've noticed that the memory usage is very high, constantly around 65%, and a few times Kodi has crashed loading a video stating cache was too full. I have an external hard drive that isn't being used, if I could plug that in and have that running alongside the android box, and let this have all apps installed, and let the cache build on there until I clear it, would that work, and is that even possible? I've posted below the system details incase that helps, incase I'm not running latest updates etc, and how to install these, basically any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Kodi 15.2 git:2015-10-31-02e7013-dirty (compiled oct 31 2015)
Kernel version 3.10.33
Android version 4.4.2
Model version m201
Build number k5.m5.20150306.v2.2.0

Hi

Please make sure that memory on box is not full(where apps are installed)

settings>other>more settings>apps

OR

settings>apps

Also sometimes even if you have below 500MB free memory,Kodi won't behave properly because there are not enough room for updates that needs to be installed.

For watching already made content,instead of HD please try with HQ or MQ,it will load faster,also try with multiple sources,because it can also be server overload at the time when you are trying to open the link,or server is simply down at the moment.

When it comes to live content,there are more chance for streaming to be unreliable because its live,in that case finding proper link with no buffering is crucial,usually you can get details about kbs speed on those.

Thats why premium add ons are there which provides high quality links with high quality streams

Regards

 

[Michael Pinchen]

Hi

Please make sure that memory on box is not full(where apps are installed)

settings>other>more settings>apps

OR

settings>apps

Also sometimes even if you have below 500MB free memory,Kodi won't behave properly because there are not enough room for updates that needs to be installed.

For watching already made content,instead of HD please try with HQ or MQ,it will load faster,also try with multiple sources,because it can also be server overload at the time when you are trying to open the link,or server is simply down at the moment.

When it comes to live content,there are more chance for streaming to be unreliable because its live,in that case finding proper link with no buffering is crucial,usually you can get details about kbs speed on those.

Thats why premium add ons are there which provides high quality links with high quality streams

Regards

Hi there, the memory usage is filling up, don't think it has the largest memory on the m5. And also, the kodi app is caching constantly when loading anything. If I plugged in an external usb hard drive, moved kodi to the usb, could I do this and would it help? Then I could clear the cache after finishing using the box.

 

[8bitDev]

Hi there, the memory usage is filling up, don't think it has the largest memory on the m5. And also, the kodi app is caching constantly when loading anything. If I plugged in an external usb hard drive, moved kodi to the usb, could I do this and would it help? Then I could clear the cache after finishing using the box.

Hi

Once wizard is set up you should leave it to update or otherwise it will freeze or crash.

At the moment its not possible to transfer instalation files to USB!

Regards

 

[Qaisir]

Hello Michael, i suspect the memory on the box is full and you will need to delete the unwanted files from the box to get it to work, try the below instructions:
First start box as normal then click on circle with 6 dots near the bottom of screen to go onto your apps, now click on Es File Explorer.
Then You will see a menu on left side inisde Es File Explorer. Click on Local>Homepage and check if the device memory is full...
If it is full then go onto Tools option on the left side then click on SD card analyst and it will analyse the box memory and display the folder occupying maximum space on the right side.
Now click on the box which is occupying the max space and it will analyse that folder and display what is inside it with the Top Folder that will be occupying the max space.
Keep clicking on the folders occupying maximum space till it shows you the files.. Once it shows the files see if they are not useful then you can delete those.

Note while going into folders through Es File Explorer if you find any folder named as Temp please delete the whole folder as these are the temporary files.
You can delete files or folders by long pressing the OK button which will select the particular folder or file and the delete option will appear at the bottom of the screen.

After you do that Restart your box go back into XBMC then System>Xunity Maintenance> Tweaks> Click on Add 0 cache advanced XML... This will auto clear the cache and thus prevent XBMC or Kodi from building up temp files if are streaming something through the box.

Also remember to always Exit (or Power Or Quit) kodi from the Button next to Star at the bottom left corner in the Kodi or XBMC main screen.

Hope that helps...